The amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman is on the agenda for a joint Senate-House constitutional convention next month.

SPRINGFIELD - More than 300 people crowded into the Cathedral High School auditorium yesterday to rally against gay marriage.

The rally was one of three rallies across the state organized by Mass Voices for Traditional Marriage. The state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November that it was unconstitutional to deny marriage rights to gay couples.

"What I am is fed up with the amount of limelight that sexual deviants are receiving in this nation," said the Rev. Talbert W. Swan II, pastor of the Solid Rock Church of God in Christ in Springfield.